Frère Jacques
by Ethelflaed
Summary: -One shot, for Tuulikki- It sat in the window of the shop, a ragtag creature of fur and sawdust, a broken music box lying in its stomach. Not worth the money it cost: but Mokuba wanted it, so he paid the price. The only question left is: what is that?


_Are you sleeping,_

_Are you sleeping?_

_Brother John?_

_Brother John?_

_Morning bells are ringing,_

_Morning bells are ringing,_

_Ding ding dong,_

_Ding ding dong._

——

It had sat in the window of the curiosity shop. A little stuffed dog with a music box in its stomach, with one ear up and one ear down, a rag-tag, fluffy bundle of cloth and sawdust, and a rusty handle stick out from its ribs. A big red patch had been sewn haphazardly on its side, and there was a leather dog collar on it, with the name "_Fido"_ very carefully scratched on its surface. Obviously a toy much loved, once upon a time.

In all, Kaiba considered it a piece of junk. But Mokuba didn't. He had looked at the black button eyes, glinting through the dust that coated them, and become entranced. After much pleading, Kaiba bought it. They stepped out of the street into the clear autumn day, the winds sweeping the orange leaves before them.

As they walked home, Mokuba played the tune from the dog. (The music box must have been broken—it played _Frère Jacques_ in minor key, over and over, until finally it wound out, the last dying notes dinging out with painful slowness.)

"What's that tune?" asked Mokuba.

"_Frère Jacques_," answered Kaiba. "In minor key..."

"What?"

So Kaiba had deigned to sing it, after making sure no one could hear him:

"_Frère Jacques,_

_Frère Jacques,_

_Dormez vous?_

_Dormez vous?_

_Sonnez les matines,_

_Sonnez les matines,_

_Din, din, don!_

_Din, din, don!"_

"What do the words mean?" asked Mokuba, winding up the dog.

"Learn French," said Kaiba. "Then you'll find out."

Mokuba made a face, but Kaiba could hear him talking under his breath:

"Frair-ay Jah-ka... Frair-ay Jah-ka... Dormay voo..."

The little dog tinkled along in accompaniment.

——

"_Frère Jacques_," tinkled the dog, over and over again. The tune was driving Kaiba insane. The more so for the minor key—the notes turned into a wail of lament. _Frère Jacques_ was a nursery tune, for heaven's sake. What kind of idiot turned it into a depressed song?

"Mokuba," he'd said, once, in an attempt at bringing some sanity back, "most thirteen-  
year-old boys don't walk around singing _Frère Jacques_ with their stuffed animals."

"Yeah," Mokuba had answered. "A lot of them go around singing, 'bleep life just bleep, y'know? I just wanna bleep die, take you bleeps with me...' with their girlfriends. Want me to do that?"

That had been the end of _that_ discussion. (It had also been the beginning of a very long period of grounding for Mokuba having those words in his vocabulary.)

"Who wrote it?" Mokuba asked, out of the blue.

"What do you mean, who?"

"Who...wrote the tune?" repeated Mokuba.

Kaiba opened his mouth to ask "_what_ tune", realized what Mokuba meant, shut his mouth, thought for a moment, then answered:

"Mahler. Gustav Mahler. Third movement...first symphony."

"Oooh," said Mokuba, as it sailed over his head. "Do symphonies have stories?"

"Not always," said Kaiba. "This one does..."

"What is it?"

"Oh..." Kaiba typed in a search on his laptop. "Um...a hunter. He dies, and all the animals have a funeral for him. That's the funeral procession. It's irony, you see: the hunter killed the animals, and when he's dead, only the animals mourn him."

Mokuba started to play the music box, not noticing Kaiba's grimace. "Oh—that makes sense."

"What does?" asked Kaiba, returning to work.

"The funeral procession," Mokuba answered absently. "It makes sense now."

Kaiba started to ask "_what_ funeral procession"...and stopped himself. He looked at the placid dog.

The dog's button eyes gazed blankly at him.

And smiled.

——

_I can't believe I'm doing this,_ thought Kaiba. He stared at the plushie, which he was carefully taking away from Mokuba's bedroom. Of course...the...dog had nothing, _physically_, to do with Mokuba's unrest, he thought. But perhaps the presence of Fido exerted unhealthy influences over Mokuba's...brain waves.

Or perhaps he just found it weird.

(The former, he thought. Certainly the former.)

He inched into his own bedroom, and stuffed Fido under the bed. There. Mokuba would get a good night's sleep tonight, at least.

_You'll regret that._

He stiffened.

"Who...?"

Muffled, from underneath his bed, came _Frère Jacques_. Only—well, if music boxes were capable of nuance, he would have found it threatening.

"Mokuba _will_ get a good night's sleep," he said defensively.

_Like a huntsman._

He sprang away through the door, knocking into a maid and breaking a vase.

——

_God bless you please, Mrs. Robinson..._ sang the radio. He could not get off of the oldies station, after numerous tries. The dial appeared to have been smeared with gum. Or oatmeal. Or something of a suitable consistency, at any rate.

Kaiba wondered if Mokuba would ever come down. Eleven o'clock, and no sign of him. He must have really been tired, thought Kaiba. He drank down the rest of his coffee, and headed upstairs. Maybe Mokuba would want waffles—or something else, he thought wryly, equally messy to make.

But it would be worth it, just to see his brother without the dark black rings imbedded beneath his eyes.

"Mokuba?" he called, striding down the hallway. "Mo-ku-ba-ah!"

He rattled the doorknob. "Hey, kiddo, you're going to sleep until tomorrow at this rate."

No response. _He must really be tired._

Kaiba opened the door, and stepped inside.

A figure fell forward from against the door, white and pale, hands bruised and stained from fighting the wooden planks. The face was strained and frozen, the eyes wide and unmoving, And in one hand, Fido lay, unruffled.

Mokuba.

——

A doll—a plaything—a creature of cloth.

_Nothing but a doll._

He stared down at it, in the hospital, as it was explained to him that Mokuba had somehow gone into a coma...phrases like "completely painless" floated down to him from far, far away. He heard himself snap and growl at the doctor.

_Nothing but a doll._

He sounded so stupid, he thought. And the dog looked at him in quiet agreement. He shivered, despite himself.

It could not be anything but a doll.

It couldn't be.

"Right?" he asked the waiting room. A few other people glanced at him, then ignored him.

He picked up a magazine, flipped through it. Vaguely, he read something about tort reform and Medicare and feminism—none of it made much sense. Then a parody piece, which he stared at in disgust. _joke_ at a time like this?

He wanted to rip the magazine in two. Then sue the writer. But instead, he picked up another magazine, mechanically trying to pretend that nothing had happened.

Apparently, the Middle East was the same wreck it had been the past fifteen minutes ago. And the fifteen minutes before that. And before that. And even before that—a whole _hour_ ago—it still had been an equally bad wreck. Why couldn't he hear about something else?

...Like Mokuba.

He did this for what seemed a long time, until he finally began to drift off to sleep. He woke up with a start, feeling cold. Stretching, he looked around. He sat in a forest, and he was entirely alone. Somewhere, he seemed to recall a waiting roomCbut all he could see were trees.

The woods were dark and cold, mist swirling and collecting around the tree branches, dripping down on him. He felt miserable. A large quantity of water splashed down his back, not alleviating the mood.

Then he saw them.

Little misty figures crept along beside him, just shadows in the thick white world surrounding them. A cat—a dog—a rocking horse—a soldier—a box—a ball—a house—a rabbit...all following in a long procession behind him. Someone began to play a tune...

Then more of them passed, carrying a dark black box. The funeral procession of toys, he supposed. He fell in step alongside them, as the tune grew stronger, throbbing in his brain and sinking into his skin as he began to walk with the rhythm.

_Dormez vous?_

_Dormez vous?_

No—he thought, then, yes. This must be a dream. The waiting room. I must find the waiting room.

The dark box stopped. He saw, as the bearers turned, there were really three boxes lined up together—two small, one large. One of the small ones was closed and sealed...the other had a lid, slowly tipping over...

He reached out to stop it, and looked inside.

Mokuba stared back.

And then he knew, with horrible certainty, that the lid must not close...and that the long pine box was his—and that as Mokuba's coffin lid inched downwards, the sealed one began to open, slowly.

A phrase drifted back to him, from memory: _Obviously a toy much loved, once upon a time..._

Much loved...by what? And what had that love turned the toy—all the toys—into?

_For, in the end, the only ones to mourn the huntsman were the animals..._

And Fido, sitting on Mokuba's chest, smiled up at him.

_In hunting them, the huntsman had given the animals life..._

He pushed up against the lid, grabbing Mokuba's hands, as the toys started to swarm around his feet. Brother John—whoever he had been—certainly played with a lot of the things. Wildly, he kicked off two jack-in-the-boxes and a small stuffed bear.

_...just as worn-out toys are killed, but love their owners all the same._

And Fido smiled, again.

He reached out, and started to throttle the dog, forgetting the lids and the toys and the growing darkness around him...he must silence this dog, this _thing_. The dog had started this—the dog would finish it—he would kill it...this demented childhood friend.

The tune shifted, off-key notes sounding, rhythm twisting. Suddenly he heard, unmistakably, "Here we go 'round the mulberry bush", before the music became once again dissonance.

_Mary had a little lamb—have you seen the muffin man? See how they run, all the pretty little horses...._

Something struggled to be heard through the nursery's cacophony—quiet minor notes.

_Frère Jacques_—

"Sleep forever!" he screamed, strangling Fido. "Sleep forever, Brother John!"

_Frère_—_Fr_—_Fr..._

The darkness surrounded him. Nothing remained but the noise and the two glinting button eyes...and as he watched...everything faded away—except for a loud and concerned voice speaking to him.

"Are you all right, sir?" asked a nurse. Kaiba blinked. The waiting room, complete with thoroughly disturbed waiters, looked back at him.

"Of course I'm all right," he snapped.

"You the toy, is all," she answered.

He looked down. Lying in his hands was the music box, and stuffing was strewn all over his chair. Of Fido, there remained only sawdust, shreds, and two button eyes crushed on the floor. He started to laugh.

"What's funny?" she asked, eager to get in on the joke.

"Nothing..."

He walked over to the window, opened it, and, taking careful aim, hit a pedestrian with the music box. Good riddance to them both.

——

A girl picked the music box up. The old-fashioned wind up kind, made like a player piano—she wound it up. And, as the melody began to play, she yawned. She felt so tired... What was that melody, anyway? It sounded a bit like that French song...

What was it, again? Frairay Jakah?

_Finis_

——

**Uh... That was strange.**

**Anyway, _Frère Jacques_ in minor key is, in fact, a highly creepy tune. Those wanting to hear it can find a link in my bio,  
**

**Unless said person is Tuulikki, in which case I have a special mp3 of the tune. Must pay homage to the birthday girl, and all...**

**...Especially when the present is late.**

**Anyway, if anyone can figure this story out, cookies are available.**

**YGO! is © Kazuki Takashi.**

**-Ethelflaed-**


End file.
